


Woof

by yoshizora



Category: Chainsaw Man (Manga)
Genre: F/F, Not Canon Compliant, not romantic at all because it's makima, post-Chapter 70, pre-Chapter 86
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: Makima takes a crack at Quanxi's contract.
Relationships: Makima/Quanxi (Chainsaw Man)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 69





	Woof

**Author's Note:**

> Qiuyue is not the official name of Quanxi's unnamed fourth fiend, it's just a name i picked for the sake of having a name for her.
> 
> yes i did read chapter 86 and yes i'm still yelling !!!!! i don't mind if 87 and beyond completely upturns my theories, this fic is purely self-indulgent headcanon. csm is so fun wtf

Quanxi wakes up in a hotel room.

“Tea or coffee?” Makima asks.

“… Coffee.”

Everything in the room is white: the silken bedsheets covering her legs, the french doors leading out to a balcony with a stunning view of the city, the plush carpeting, the marble countertop of the kitchenette. The walls. The ceiling. A framed painting dominates the view to her left; to her right is that cityscape so tantalizingly close, just outside those doors. Quanxi’s head begins to hurt when she stares at the painting too long, so she turns her attention back to Makima, who is coming back over with a steaming cup.

The coffee is pitch black.

Quanxi puts the cup down on the nightstand without taking a sip.

“I also prefer coffee with my breakfast,” Makima says. She sits on the edge of the bed, hands folded respectfully on her lap and a bland smile belying the horrors behind her eyes. Any rational being would shrivel away, but Quanxi doesn’t react. “There’s no better way to start the mornings. I’m sorry, there isn’t any sugar or cream available.”

“You killed my girls.”

Makima holds up two fingers. Technicalities. She only killed _two._ Still smiling, she asks, “Do you want to avenge them?”

What’s the point? This woman can’t be killed so easily. Makima is simply rubbing that futility into the wounds like salt, fresh and raw and excruciatingly painful. All the powers at the disposal of the world’s most prestigious and dangerous devil hunter would do as much against Makima as a pebble beneath a lion’s paw.

The loss of her fiends weighs heavily upon her. Quanxi’s expression doesn’t change as she searches those empty, terrifying eyes.

“Yeah.”

But revenge is obviously out of the question here.

* * *

Kishibe’s suspicions about Makima took root many, many years ago. By the time they sprouted their first buds, Quanxi was long gone. The Chinese government ensured that Japan would not be able to pursue her, and she paid the price of freedom in exchange for comfort and safety with her fiends. Kishibe wouldn’t have understood. He was covered in too many thorns he had cultivated himself.

She wonders if he took her advice. Probably not.

Makima visits the white room again when a full day has passed. She sits beside Quanxi on the cream leather sofa. Something on the TV is playing: a news program put on mute, a reporter with doe-like eyes and red lips gesturing to the wrecked mall behind her.

“You don’t need to understand why I’m doing this,” Makima says, placing a hand on Quanxi’s knee. “The secret to leading a happy life in this world is that ‘ignorance is bliss’, right? I’ll take good care of you. Leave all the difficult things to me.”

Quanxi thinks of Kishibe and his feigned complacency; of his insanity and defiance and everything else that made him worthy of being her hunting partner.

She thinks of her girls. Never again will she wake up in the morning to be greeted with a bright _Good morning!_ from Pingtsi. Or a _Halloween!_ from Cosmo. Qiuyue was always silent but expressive when she needed to be, and Long preferred to communicate through gestures and touch.

That Devil’s heart in her chest thumps hard, nearly stirring something Quanxi had lost a long time ago.

“Why did you kill them?”

“Because,” Makima says, leaning in close, “they would be a liability.”

* * *

Quanxi could leave at any time. The balcony is about twenty stories off the ground but the jump would be child’s play. Or she could stroll out the door and take the elevator or stairs.

She doesn’t leave. Makima continues to visit her daily.

“Have you given my offer any thought?” Makima asks. Her smile is as bland and threatening as ever. They sit across from each other on the balcony, sharing a pot of black tea.

“You’ve put me in a difficult situation, Makima,” Quanxi says, looking out over the city. Her cup of tea remains untouched. “Putting up a real fight would only be a mild inconvenience to you, and my girls can never be brought back or restored to the way they were. I have nothing left to live for or fight for, but I…”

“But you haven’t let go.” Makima leans back in her seat, arms folded behind her head. “That’s what I thought. Grief is as immeasurable as the sea— did you know that more than eighty percent of this world’s oceans haven’t been explored yet? Your feelings… are an incomprehensible, unfathomable thing. So much is yet to be discovered within its depths.”

“I promised that Devil the experience of love.”

“Yes. You’re holding your end of the contract admirably, even in these circumstances.”

“I can’t help it.”

Makima reaches across the table, to brush the back of her hand along Quanxi’s cheek. She’s warm.

“All that love you have left must hurt quite a lot now.”

“That’s just part of the contract,” Quanxi says, allowing herself to respond with a tilted, wry smile. "As I said, I can't help it."

* * *

Makima is making progress and is evidently pleased about it.

There are limits to her powers, whatever they may be, which Quanxi still doesn’t care to know or learn about. She’s better off not knowing. The hotel room is mysteriously cleaned every night after she goes to sleep, and every morning Makima is there to take her order of coffee or tea. The news shows nothing interesting day after day. That painting on the wall continues to give her a migraine. 

Her poor Devil had been so fixated on _love_ it nearly forgot everything else— sorrow, rage, joy, fear, grief, and everything in between _._ Quanxi had felt vestiges of those primordial sensations when Santa had taken Pingtsi and Long from her _(rage)_ , and then again as Qiuyue and Cosmo hid behind her when Makima appeared _(fear)_.

Makima didn’t win a decisive victory when she cut their heads off. She wasn't able to seize complete control because Quanxi could not let go of that bizarre, immeasurable love she had for her girls. That alone was untouchable, something that even a monster like Makima couldn't wipe with one smear of her palm.

It's a cliché. Like something out a fairy tale, except this tale wouldn't have a happy ending.

One day, Makima’s stay extends through the evening. Quanxi doesn’t protest when Makima climbs into the bed with her, nor when she kisses her or when she peels back that eyepatch to press a thumb into Quanxi’s eye socket as she caresses her face. She lies there and allows Makima in, no more fight left in her.

Not that there was any fight in the first place.

Makima didn’t even need to break the contract. She found a way into it. Or maybe she always knew how to, but thought it would be more fun to prolong this sick game.

* * *

_Pingtsi. Long. Qiuyue. Cosmo._

Makima has given her a new suit. She watches Quanxi change into it and steps close to fiddle with the tie. Their eyes meet— hollow, hazy, dangerous— and she holds Quanxi’s chin between two fingers to kiss her.

_Pingtsi. Long. Qiuyue._

Quanxi feels herself slipping away, bit by bit.

“There, isn’t that better?” Makima says, holding her gaze like a magnet. She has Quanxi’s tie wrapped around one hand, almost choking her.

_Pingtsi. Long._

The white room is blinding. She wonders if there are any other guests staying in this hotel, if they are Makima’s guests. Are their rooms identical to hers? Have they struggled in the way she has? Or were their contracts easier to navigate, to pick apart and leave nothing behind?

_Pingtsi…_

“I’m very fond of dogs,” Makima sighs, pulling Quanxi along by her tie to lead her to the sofa. They sit, and Makima yanks Quanxi down so that her head rests on her lap. She idly pets Quanxi’s hair as she speaks. “They’re so loyal and obedient. I think anyone would envy the simple happiness dogs have, which is why I’d like to share that happiness with others.”

_Makima._

“But it’s harder with someone like you, who already had a taste of a very similar kind of happiness on her own,” Makima continues. “This was far from a waste, though; I had a fun time. How about you, Quanxi? Did you also have a fun time? Yes, who's a good girl? That's right! Good girl.”

A different kind of love wells up, unnatural and wrong, drowning out everything else. No, not drowning— numbing. Only then does Quanxi realize how much pain she'd been in for the past however many days it had been.

_Makima. Makima._

"Good girl. Bark for me, Quanxi," she says, pulling her tie taut while she pets her hair. 

_Makima. Makima. Makima._

Quanxi stops thinking altogether. “… Woof.”

**Author's Note:**

> so basically my vaguely convoluted and nonsensical headcanon for quanxi's contract with the crossbow(??) devil is that she had somehow fallen in love with it, and the crossbow devil tried to reciprocate, but the bond they shared wasn't enough for the devil so it proposed living within quanxi as her heart (and thus granting her the powers of a hybrid). the devil wanted to experience real love firsthand and quanxi of course obliged, which is why she seems to be driven almost entirely by the genuine love she has for her four fiends during the assassins arc. 
> 
> sorry for getting so rambly lmao i just love quanxi a lot!! again, this is all just headcanon, i fully expect fujimoto to prove me wrong eventually.


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